When two parties want to communicate in real-time over great distances, the telephone has been the traditional communications device of choice. Advancements in technologies over the years have now permitted both audio and video communications between parties over great distances. This form of communications is commonly referred to as video conferencing, and depending on the complexity (and associated expense) of the equipment involved may provide nearly real-time communications among two or more parties.
In traditional form, video conferencing includes some type of local equipment associated with each person seeking to participate in the conference. When the conference is to be started, the equipment at each location is employed to call in (e.g., “conference in”) to a call center. As each of these endpoints establishes a connection with the central location, the video and audio signals may then be accessed by all of the participants so that a conversation with both audio and video can take place. Among the various types of video conferencing equipment, one of the most common employs specialty dedicated equipment at each geographic location of the participants. This equipment typically employs an ISDN or similar data connection to transmit and receive audio/video communications data during the video conference.
Unfortunately, conventionally available video conferencing equipment has a common characteristic: each system requires endpoint initiation (and termination) for each participant in the conference. Such a requirement has several disadvantages, including the high cost associated with such specialty equipment, and the freedom (or burden) to control the equipment at each corresponding endpoint. Regarding expense, many companies or individuals are financially prohibited from enjoying such video conferencing because they either cannot afford the special equipment, or perhaps cannot justify the expense for equipment not regularly used. Regarding endpoint control, the difficulty in operating such specialty equipment is a burden many people would like to be without. In addition, situations exist where initiation of the video conference and control of the video conferencing equipment by one or more of the participants is not desired.
An example of a situation where endpoint control is not desirable is in the prison system. Many times, a prison inmate is housed in a location a great distance from his family or friends, which results in visitation of the inmate being inconvenient or even impossible due to travel time and expense. As such, a video conference with the inmate would seem a perfect answer; however, as mentioned above, the expense and complexity of the necessary equipment may be prohibitive. Perhaps more important is the potential security risk if endpoint control is permitted in a video conference with an inmate. Even in conventional face-to-face visits, conversations between inmates and their visitors are monitored to ensure that no greater security risk is created than already exists with an outsider's presence in the prison. However, if endpoint control in such a visitation scenario were permitted, it would be difficult to effectively monitor the visit to ensure security. Potential security breaches include, but are not limited to, coded dialog between the inmate and a visitor, as well as hand and facial gestures used to communicate improper information.
While traditional video conferencing equipment could potentially be used in the prison scenario, the above-mentioned problems would still be present. More specifically, conventional video conferencing requires endpoint control to initiate and terminate the conversation. As a result, an overseer may not be capable of ending the visit if conduct violations occur during the visit. In addition, with endpoint control of the equipment, a prison inmate can easily damage the equipment if he has access to it, and may lack the technical knowledge to even operate the equipment at all. Although a security officer or technician may be given control of the equipment so that it is not accessible by the inmate, another disadvantage is created by requiring the services of an employee, whose time is probably better served elsewhere.
Perhaps the most important reason why traditional video conferencing would not be workable for prison visitation and other similar situations is the lack of synchronicity between data connections during the conference. More specifically, as each participant in the video conference connects to the conversation, a new data connection, or path, is created. In a prison situation, at least three data paths would be present: one for the inmate, one for the visitor, and one for the overseer monitoring the conversation. Unfortunately, an inherent latency exists between these multiple connections that poses a significant security risk for the prison. Because of latency in the data path during data transmission, communication is not instantaneous; the delay is a function of all intermediate equipment and media along the data path. Because different routes may be taken along each data path, there may exist a difference in latency and the delay experienced by each if each party is connected with a separate data path. Unfortunately, this difference in latency among multiple simultaneous data paths poses a significant security risk for a prison. As a result, the visitor or inmate may engage in an improper communication during the visit, but the difference in latency between connections prevents the overseer from learning of the improper conduct in time to prevent it or further improper conduct from occurring. Accordingly, what is needed is a video visitation system for permitting video visits between participants that is not endpoint controlled and that does not suffer from the deficiencies found in the prior art.